Valleseco, Neighbourhood in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain

Valleseco is a neighbourhood of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Anaga district, on the right bank of the Valleseco ravine that gives it its name, between La Alegría and María Jiménez, about 3 km from the city centre at an average altitude of 70 m. Its houses are built on steep slopes, and it comprises the nuclei La Cardonera, Las Cuevas, La Quebrada, El Rebolado and Valleseco itself, plus the small farming hamlet of La Fortaleza higher up the valley.

Valleseco grew from a late-19th-century settlement of labourers who worked the La Jurada quarry beside the ravine, cutting stone for the south quay of Santa Cruz's port. In the 1960s migration from the countryside brought more residents from inland Anaga and elsewhere on Tenerife. In 1994 much of the barrio was included in the Anaga Rural Park, and in 2015 it became part of the UNESCO Macizo de Anaga Biosphere Reserve.

The parish church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen, the patron saint, gained parish status in 1964 and has a contemporary design with a bell tower above the village. Its carved image of the Virgin is not a dressed mannequin like most Carmen images carried on boats in the Canaries. The patronal fiestas fall on the Sunday after 16 July, with a procession to the jetty and then by sea inside the port.

Valleseco is reached by the Avenida de Anaga and the TF-11 San Andrés motorway, about 3 km from central Santa Cruz de Tenerife. TITSA buses serve the barrio, and the PR-TF 2 trail links it on foot with Taborno. The houses stand on steep slopes, so expect gradients between the valley floor and the upper hamlets.

The steam crane from the old Cory Brothers coal wharf, used to load and unload coal barges until 1956, survives and now stands in front of the nearby Nautical School; few steam cranes remain in Spain. Since 2011 Valleseco holds an annual twinning day with its namesake municipality on Gran Canaria.